As Research Funds Dry Up, Science Doctorates Make a Beeline for Data Jobs

As Research Funds Dry Up, Science Doctorates Make a Beeline for Data Jobs

For Yazan Al-Hasan, becoming a scientist was a lifelong dream. He spent six years completing a doctorate in neuroscience at the University of Texas at Austin and three more years doing postdoctoral research. Then he gave it all up. A Palestinian by birth, Al-Hasan was drawn to science by his deep fascination with how the brain works. Spending quiet, lonely hours in a research lab was hard for the outgoing 36-year-old with a warm manner and a quick smile. But harder still was waiting what seemed like forever for a stable, tenure-track professor’s position– the Holy Grail of an academic career in the United States– and competing for his own research funding. “Excellent scientists were no longer getting funded and they had to lay off their postdocs and graduate students…